AI company Anthropic has signed its first data centre lease agreement in Australia, securing capacity at a planned 2.16-gigawatt facility in Queensland as the company expands its infrastructure footprint.
The data centre, being developed by Singapore-based Zerra DC on farmland about 250 km from Brisbane, is expected to begin coming online in 2027. Anthropic plans to use the facility primarily for AI inference, processing queries through its Claude models rather than training new models.
The project is expected to rely on renewable power agreements and use a closed-loop, air-cooled system designed to reduce water consumption. The deal remains subject to approval from Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board.
The agreement comes as major AI companies race to secure computing capacity and energy infrastructure worldwide, while Australia seeks to attract large-scale AI investment amid growing debate over the electricity, land and water demands of data centres.
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